U.S. to Reject Pact on Protection Of Wildlife and Global Resources

By KEITH SCHNEIDER,

Published: May 30, 1992

WASHINGTON, May 29—
Less than a week before the start of a global environmental summit conference, the Bush Administration said today that it would not sign an international treaty recently negotiated by 98 countries to preserve the world's plants, animals and natural resources.

The treaty, the product of almost two weeks of intense negotiations in Nairobi, Kenya, this month, is considered one of the two main achievements of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, which begins on Wednesday in Rio de Janeiro.

The other focus, a proposed treaty to combat global warming, was accepted by the United States, but only after the Administration persuaded other countries to drop their insistence on a strict timetable for curbing emissions of carbon dioxide. Others to Follow U.S. Lead

The Administration's decision on the treaty preserving plants, animals and natural resources, known as the biological diversity treaty, is almost certain to be followed by Japan and many European nations, according to preliminary indications from officials in those countries.

The actions by the President and other leaders of the industrialized world is likely to further roil an international conference that many world leaders and environmentalists had hoped would make repairing the planet a central organizing political force in the post-cold-war period.

But the American refusal to sign the biodiversity treaty is not expected to be a fatal blow. Unlike the case of the climate treaty, to which the United States is essential because it is the world's largest industrial emitter of carbon dioxide, the biodiversity treaty protects natural resources that are distributed among many nations. The treaty will come into force when it has been ratified by 30 nations.

Nevertheless, the Administration appeared to be sensitive to criticism of its refusal to sign the treaty. As if anticipating the criticism, the Administration announced its rejection late this afternoon, too late for the deadlines of some news organizations, particularly television.

And then, almost simultaneously, the White House announced that the United States and Germany were preparing a separate international plan to develop economic and technical practices for preserving the world's forests. President Bush is expected to announce on Monday that the United States will contribute more than $100 million annually to put it into effect.

The cause of protecting forests is expected to be a major point of contention at the Earth Summit, with Malaysia and other developing countries opposed to curbs on their use of forest land for economic development.

The forestry and species preservation issues are only two of several that are pitting rich nations against poor nations and stirring criticism among environmental groups of the leadership of the United States.

One major theme of these disputes is the demand by developing countries to be compensated for any curbs on their use of their natural resources. The United States has resisted such demands, and aides to Mr. Bush had advised him against going to Rio for fear that he would come under pressure to sign agreements deemed objectionable. Patent Protection Cited

In explaining why the President would not sign the treaty for preserving species, the State Department said the text was "seriously flawed" because it failed to give adequate patent protection to American companies that would transfer biological inventions to developing countries.

The State Department also said the United States had concerns with how money for putting the treaty into effect would be disbursed.

Lastly, the United States said it disagreed with the treaty's attempt to regulate the safety of genetically engineered products that would be used in developing countries. The State Department said it did not believe such products pose an environmental threat.

"In every negotiation, no matter how important the subject matter, the actual outcome must always be considered," the State Department said. "The United States does not and can not sign an agreement that is fundamentally flawed merely for the sake of having that agreement."

Scientists and ecologists have warned for more than a decade that the rate of extinction of plants, animals and microbes is accelerating as pollution and the destruction of forests and other habitats take their toll. The United States and other nations had expressed great interest in developing an international treaty to provide protections because new medical, agricultural and industrial inventions also would be lost as species vanished.

Many of the world's medicines were developed from plants. Many genetically engineered food crops expected in the future will incorporate genes collected from plant and microbial species in the tropics.

Countries that signed the treaty on May 22 in Nairobi committed themselves to developing programs to conserve the diversity of biological resources, set up protected habitats and restore habitats that had been destroyed or degraded by industrial development. The treaty called for the signers to meet periodically to review progress, but it did not specify how much money the richer countries would provide to the poorer ones.